Manti Te'o opens up on the impact of NIL, reflects on popularity of his jersey at Notre Dame

In 2012, Manti Te’o was on top of the college football world. The former Notre Dame linebacker won multiple major defensive awards and was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy as he helped the Fighting Irish to the BCS national championship.

He was also the most popular player on the team, with No. 5 jerseys seen all around Notre Dame Stadium. The university started selling merchandise with his number on it, but it couldn’t have Te’o’s name, image or likeness. NIL wouldn’t come about for another decade, meaning he couldn’t see a penny of the money made from those sales.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘Geez, man. If I could just get like a fraction of that so that I could fly my family out to games,'” Te’o said Thursday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I would save all of my summer stipend checks so I could fly my parents out for games. My parents only came to — every year, they came to the first game and the last home game. That’s it. And so, if I were to just have enough money to fly my family out there every game, that would be a blessing for me.”

When Te’o’s family would come to campus, though, they’d make a trip to the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore to pick up some merchandise for other family members back home in his native Hawaii. One trip, at the peak of his popularity, he finally asked someone how much money came in as a result of the No. 5 gear.

He didn’t expect the answer he got.

“My family, we had a tradition. Every time they would come up, we would go to the book store and walk around, buy stuff. Buy gifts for the family back home,” Te’o said. “I see all of the 5 memorabilia everywhere and I remember asking one of the clerks, I said, ‘Hey, how much money do you usually make on the memorabilia?’ He was like, ‘Well we make millions a weekend.’ I was like, ‘A weekend?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, a weekend.’

“I was like, ‘On all the memorabilia or the 5?’ He was like, ‘All of the 5 memorabilia around the country will make a couple million a weekend off of that stuff.’ … If I could afford more than some Jimmy John’s, like I would just like a good steak dinner. Just give me something, bro.”

Manti Te’o calls for more education for athletes regarding NIL

While he’s happy to see players able to benefit from their name, image and likeness, Manti Te’o also called for one major improvement. He wants to see more education so athletes are being smart with the money they receive from their deals, whether it be investing or simply spending it wisely.

With some of the money coming in from deals, Te’o said it would benefit the athletes in the long-term if they knew what to do with those earnings.

“NIL is one of those things now where I’m glad they’re compensating these kids for their likeness and stuff like that. I just wish they would go an extra step further and educate these kids a little bit on how to use that money,” Te’o said. “How to budget, how to invest and help them out that way. I think they’re just giving the kid a fish. They’re not teaching him how to fish. Because one day, as we all know, that money’s going to run out.

“Imagine, you give a 17, 18-year-old kid a couple million dollars. He doesn’t know how to use that. And then, he has friends and family everywhere that say, ‘Hey, give me my share.’ There are grown men that don’t know how to do that and we’re giving it to 17 and 18-year-old kids. So if we could go a step further and educate these kids on the importance of financial literacy, how to budget, how to say no, how to invest in stuff like that. I think it would be a way better situation.”